Part of our Emergency Communications and Preparedness guide.
Checking into a weekly net and saying your name and location is one thing. Accurately passing a real, formatted message from one station to another, the way an actual served agency needs during an incident, is a genuinely different skill, and it depends on standardized forms and procedure rather than casual conversation.
What ICS-213 actually is
ICS-213 is a general message form used throughout the Incident Command System, the standardized emergency management framework used by fire departments, emergency management agencies, and served agencies nationwide, not something specific to amateur radio. It has a simple structure: sender, recipient, date and time, a subject line, and a message body, along with fields for reply if one is needed. Because served agencies already use ICS-213 in their own non-radio operations, having hams pass messages in the exact same format means the message can move seamlessly from a radio net into an agency’s normal paperwork and workflow without needing translation or reformatting.
ICS-213 is not the only message format you will run into. The ARRL Radiogram is the traditional format of the National Traffic System, with a preamble (message number, precedence, handling, station of origin, check, place, time, and date), an address, a word-counted text, and a signature. Radiograms are built for relaying through many stations, while ICS-213 is built to drop straight into an agency’s paperwork, so ask your local group which one your served agencies want. If you use Winlink, both formats are available as built-in templates, and the ICS-213 template fills in the form fields for you so the receiving agency gets a clean, printable copy.
Why exact procedure matters here
A real ICS-213 message gets read back, word for word, by the receiving station before the sender confirms it as correct, exactly the kind of formal accuracy check that casual conversation never bothers with. Numbers get spelled out digit by digit, ambiguous words get clarified using the phonetic alphabet, and the entire exchange follows a scripted rhythm specifically because a served agency may act directly on the content of that message, meaning an error carries real consequences in a way a garbled net check-in never would.
The basic exchange, step by step
- The sending station calls net control or the receiving station directly, stating they have formal traffic to pass.
- The receiving station confirms readiness and prepares to copy, typically with the actual ICS-213 form in hand or open on a screen.
- The sender reads each field slowly and clearly, using phonetics for anything ambiguous, and pausing between fields for the receiver to catch up.
- The receiver reads the entire message back in full, and the sender confirms it is correct or corrects any specific field that was copied wrong.
- The message is logged by both stations with a time stamp, since accurate record-keeping is part of what makes formal traffic handling useful to a served agency after the fact.
Where to actually practice this
This is a skill that atrophies fast without regular use, and it is exactly the kind of thing a well-run weekly net should be rehearsing periodically rather than sticking to a plain roll call every single week. Many ARES groups run dedicated traffic-handling practice sessions specifically using ICS-213 forms and simulated scenarios, and volunteering to send or receive a practice message during one of these sessions is a far better way to build real competence than reading about the format alone.
The same readback habit matters even more when there’s no repeater and messages have to hop from station to station on simplex. Every hop is another chance for the wording to change. I cover how to run that kind of net, with a printable relay log, in Human Relay Networks: Moving Traffic Across Town on Simplex.
The ICS-213 is one piece of the larger Incident Command System. If you want the full picture of how that system is organized and where radio operators fit in it, the free FEMA courses are the place to start. See FEMA ICS Courses for Hams: IS-100, 200, 700, and 800 Explained.
Blank ICS-213 forms are freely available from FEMA’s website, and keeping a small stack, along with a pen, in your go-bag alongside your radio gear costs nothing and means you are actually ready the day this skill gets called on for real rather than for practice.